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I meet Charlie’s hard stare over the prick’s shoulder. He gives me a little nod, a sign he’s reading me loud and clear and drags him through the crowd, away from me. I’ll get to him later.

“She’s waking up.” The redhead pats Mira’s cheek. “Hey, you awake?”

Mira’s eyes flutter open, and her forehead wrinkles as her eyes come into focus.

“What…what happened?” she asks, raising her hand to her head.

“No, don’t touch.” I pull her arm back down, getting her hand away from the open wound and alerting her to my presence in the process.

Her eyes go wide when she recognizes me.

“The ambulance is on the way.” Henry, the owner of this hole in the wall, pipes up.

“Why?” She keeps looking at me.

“Because you hit your head hard. You need stitches, and they’ll want to check for a concussion,” I say, playing along with the others.

The last thing I want is her in the hospital. I’ve stitched up worse wounds than this but getting her out of here right now, while everyone’s watching so intently, will be more trouble than it’s worth. In my work, flexibility is key. I can make this work.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, blinking up at me.

“Checking in on you.” I force a smile and a calm voice.

The redhead stares at me. “I think we got this, thanks.”

She tries to push me away, but I maneuver Mira so she’s lying with her head on my knee.

“They’re here!” Henry yells. The music that was blaring only minutes ago has stopped, and most of the crowd has backed away to allow the paramedics through with a gurney.

I give Mira over to the EMTs and back away to blend in with the onlookers. No one knows me here, and a stranger being too involved in Mira’s situation will stick out.

From further back in the crowd, I watch as they load her, unwillingly at first, onto the gurney after having cleansed the wound and tried to stop the bleeding. Head wounds bleed like a motherfucker, and her cut is pretty deep. It takes them time to get it under control.

“You need stitches, and we can’t do that out in the field,” the EMT dressing the woundtells her.

“Just go, Mira. Let them check you out,” the redhead pushes. Mira finally agrees and lies back as they roll her from the bar.

By the time they pull away from the bar with their lights flashing, I’m in my car and ready to follow. There’s only one hospital in this town, but I’m not letting that ambulance out of my sight.

As we drive past the police station a few blocks down, I take note that the asshole who hit her is being taken out of the backseat of a cruiser and led into the building.

Good. They can hold on to him for now, and then he’s mine.

When I get to the emergency room, I head for what looks like the entrance to the exam rooms. An older woman with a pair of glasses swinging from her neck on one of those pearl chains stops me.

“Excuse me, hun, you can’t just go back there. Are you here to see someone?” She gently tugs on my jacket sleeve, and because she’s half my size and has the look of my own grandmother, I don’t shove her off me.

“I’m looking for Mira Peterson.” I give the fake name she’s been using.

Only changing her last name was probably easier for her not to screw it up. Answering to a brand new name can be hard, and she needed to keep up appearances.

“She just arrived by ambulance.” I offer when she starts to tap away on her computer.

She looks over the brim of the glasses she’s perched on her nose in order to see the computer screen. “Only familymembers are allowed back there during an emergency. Are you family?”

“Her husband.” I say with finality.

There’s absolutely no way this woman or anyone else would believe I’m related to Mira. I’m over six feet tall, and Mira might hit five three if she stands on her toes.